Preston finished writing his hero report for his Key of Liberty class. It was a research paper with a least two book sources and had to be at least 2 1/2 pages single spaced. It really pushed Preston, but he did a great job. He chose to do his report on George Washington.
He also started rehearsals for Shakespeare and is doing a great job memorizing his lines.
MARISSA
Marissa has been working on her reading, language arts and math more this week. She did a lot of reading and memorized a poem called "Dragonfly."
CALEB
Caleb has really been working on reading, phonics and handwriting this week. He is getting so much better at holding his pencil and carefully forming shapes and letters.
OTHER
CUP STACKING
Caleb and Marissa have been cup stacking to work on some building and engineering skills for their tech class. They love it and have gotten quite good at recognizing properties that make a structure more sound.
Preston has been working on memorizing lines for his Shakespeare play during a two week break at Polar Star. They are performing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with a Mexican theme. He's playing a smaller part, but he's still very excited. He's playing the part of Fernando.
Preston has also been asked to do the prolog in Spanish at the beginning of the play. Another person will then come in and translate the prolog. Preston understands Spanish because his dad is originally from Argentina, but he doesn't speak or read much of it. He's having to work hard to learn to read and speak well in his second language. It's been a lot of work, but he's really enjoying preparing for when rehearsals start next week.
MARISSA
Marissa has been in a creative mode lately. One day, she and Caleb were playing Legos. She decided she wanted to invent a machine that could pick up Legos. She dug through the recycling and went to work. It was definitely a promising invention.
She has also been loving Snap Circuits. She was working on finding a way to combine her invention with circuits to make it automatic. It didn't happen yet, but she's not giving up.
She broke her arm at the zoo last week (Caleb came down the slide and landed on her). We didn't realize it was broken for a few days. We finally took her in on Friday and found out it was broken. Then we had to wait for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to make sure she didn't need surgery. Thankfully, she emerged from the appointment with a hot pink cast and no surgery. A broken bone doesn't seem to slow her down with all her ideas and inventions and discoveries though.
Marissa also got to attend a formal etiquette dinner. She had so much fun and learned all about manners and formalities. I had to include a picture of her in her fancy dress! ;)
CALEB
Caleb's favorite thing this week was building with Legos. He's been reading a lot about animals and learning so much. One day he ran in to tell me how excited he was because he was going to build a habitat out of Legos. Of course Marissa thought that sounded like so much fun and decided to join him in building.
OTHER
PRIME NUMBERS
Caleb and Marissa had a great time learning about prime numbers from "Life of Fred." He was talking about how no even numbers are prime except for the number 2, but that not all odds are prime. The kids got out gems and lined them up to see why the numbers 9 and 15 are not prime even though they are odd numbers. It was a really good visual to help them understand at a different level.
SCIENCE
Marissa and I had an unexpected lesson about prisms and light when we were at her great grandma's. She was reading on the couch and we looked over to see that the crystals on the lamp in the living room was creating tiny rainbows on the curtain. It was so much fun to see and discuss together. We remembered learning about that from the book "Pollyanna" which was one of Marissa's favorites a year or two ago. It reminded us to play the glad game just like Pollyanna did. Such a fun day!
Preston celebrated his 15th birthday this week. We went to the zoo that day and had a great time. We spent three hours looking at animals, exploring and having a great time learning and playing together!
MARISSA
Marissa made a shadow box for her Tech class this week. It was really fun for her! She did all the wiring for it and then created different pictures she can switch out with the light.
She has also been working on diagramming sentences and working on her homophones lists as part of her assignments for her Ninja Scholar classes. It's a lot of work, but she is doing so well!
CALEB
Caleb has been working hard on his reading this week. He loves Mr Putter and Tabby books!
Caleb's favorite activity this week was building a tower around him with Keva planks and mini dominoes. It was a major accomplishment for him to hold still while the kids built around him (and his legs were so sore afterwards) but he was so proud of himself and we got an awesome video.
OTHER
PI DAY
Preston We had a great time celebrating Pi Day. We watched a couple of videos on YouTube to learn about pi, read "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi" and then spent about an hour measuring the diameter of several different circles and then figuring out the circumference on paper. We measured with a cloth measuring tape to see if we got our calculations right and (allowing for a little error in measuring) we definitely figured out the equation. So much fun! We ate miniature pot pies for lunch, pizza pie for dinner and chocolate pie for dessert. Definitely a fun day filled with learning.
Preston had a field trip to Hale Center Theater this week with his Shakespeare class. They watched "Treasure Island." He loved it!
He also made a stop motion video for his older brother's birthday. He turned 18 and also moved out so it was an emotional week! The video Preston made is his brother working out. He did a great job with it!
MARISSA
Marissa read Jacob Deshazer for her Ninja Scholars class this week. They had a book discussion about it and she did amazing playing Family Feud and answering questions from the book.
CALEB
Caleb had his first piano recital this week. His piano lessons are group lessons using the Musikgarten philosophy of learning music naturally. He did such a great job!
OTHER
GEOGRAPHY
Caleb has been trying to make sense of the war in Ukraine the last couple of weeks. I've told him the kids a little bit about it, but also guarded them from knowing too much. This was Caleb setting up his soldiers on the map to have a visual of the area and learn a little bit more.
